Otago Innovation Limited wins national commercialisation award

The University of Otago’s commercialisation arm, Otago Innovation Limited, has won a national award for its commercialisation of the National Poison Centre’s database, TOXINZ.

At this week’s inaugural KiwiNet Research Commercialisation Awards, Otago Innovation Limited received the BNZ Commercial Deal Award. This award celebrates excellence in research commercialisation delivering outstanding innovation performance and the potential for generating significant economic impact for New Zealand.

Developed at the University over the past 50 years, TOXINZ has been widely used by New Zealand clinicians. It contains more than 190,000 documents with comprehensive and up-to-date information on poisonous chemicals, pharmaceuticals, plants and animals.

Benefit to New Zealand and worldwide has been demonstrated through subscriptions to TOXINZ currently being sold to poison centres, hospitals, state governments and health boards. Otago Innovation has leveraged this niche specialised information to create significant international returns.

The Award judges commented that the commercialisation of TOXINZ is "a case study in monetising assets previously under-valued. It illustrates that simple ideas are often the best ideas, and how you are able to derive great value from data. The competitive win in this case speaks to the quality of product and implementation."

A video interview with Otago Innovation Limited’s CEO Colin Dawson about the commercialisation of TOXINZ can be viewed here.

For more information on KiwiNet and the 2013 KiwiNet Research Commercialisation Awards, please visit www.kiwinet.org.nz

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